Exploring Barriers and Motivations for Canadian Nonprofit Fundraising

Studies and research involving nonprofit fundraising always peak my interest. When they focus on Canada, I’m even more interested. In the past I have reviewed several informative reports from very reliable resources such as the Blackbaud Index, the 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report, the 3rd Annual Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report 2011 and The Nonprofit Research Collaborative report (and Part 2) and Blackbaud’s Nonprofit Fundraising Industry Survey Anticipates 2012. Today I’m adding The Innovative Research Group to this list of reliable resources.

The Innovative Research Group, a national research and strategy firm that has worked in many sectors ranging from government, to private organizations, to nonprofits, recently released a study named Exploring Barriers and Motivations for Canadian Charitable Giving.   Based on a survey of 1,759 Canadians that were surveyed from November 17th to 24th of this year, barriers and motivations of charitable giving were measured amongst three main groups, i) donors who had made donations of $500 or more in the past 12 months; ii) donors who had made donations of under $500 in the past 12 months; iii) those who had NOT made any donation in the past 12 months and in three main areas: Socially-Focused Motivations, Inner-Focused Motivations and Barriers to Giving.

It’s encouraging to see that 79% of respondents gave a monetary donation within the surveyed period. While it’s not surprising that the other 21% did not donate anything at all given the current state of the economy and other barriers, it’s important to identify and understand what those barriers are in order to develop strategies to minimize them while increasing motivators.

There were many informative insights found in the study, the largest being that the top socially focussed motivator in giving is trust.  Trust is essential when building a community of donors and supporters.  Three main factors that can help build trust with current and prospective supporters include:

1. belief in the cause, marketing a compelling story or case that will motivate supporters;
2. open communication and accessibility through multi channels and platforms; and
3. transparency, regular reporting that help satisfy donors need to see that their contributions are supporting the cause and making a difference

Other socially focussed motivators include the importance to help the less fortunate, which topped the list at 84%, while on the other end of the spectrum 31% believe that their religious beliefs includes giving to charity.  Half of respondents also agreed they give to charity to give back to the community and they also felt a sense of duty to help their community.

Almost half of respondents, 48% agreed that they most enjoy giving their time, twice as many as those who enjoy giving money the most at 22%.  In both cases this is especially true in donors who donated over $500 in the past year.  46% also felt that those who give to charity are respected by their community.

Over half of respondent didn’t feel the government was at fault for the need of charity, while 46% didn’t feel that giving to charity helped government to avoid their responsibilities.  Other findings in barriers to giving included that 7 out of 10 respondents felt that a lot of the donations end up covering administrative costs and does not go towards the actual cause, certainly another barrier that affects overall donor and supporter trust.

I encourage you to take a look at the complete 18 page report for additional findings. How do you build your organizations trust with your community of supporters?
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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.